Two Astrophysics Lectures

Not-so-simple stellar populations in nearby, resolved massive star clusters

Until about a decade ago, star clusters were considered "simple"stellar populations: all stars in a cluster were thought to have similar ages and the same metallicity. Only the individual stellar masses were thought to vary, in essence conforming to a "universal" initial mass function. Over the past decade, this situation has changed dramatically. I will discuss my group's recent progress in this context, with particular emphasis on the properties and the alleged presence of multiple populations in Local Group star clusters across the full age range. Our most recent results imply a reverse paradigm shift, back to the old simple stellar population picture for at least some intermediate- age (~2 Gyr-old) star clusters, which opens up exciting avenues for future research efforts.

TBA

Speaker: Sara Seager, MIT